Where Everyone Loves You Always and Forever
by bekahl2013
Summary: Post 4x15. "The morning sun warms her from the outside in...he warms her in an entirely different way."


**Title:** Where Everyone Loves You Always and Forever**  
****Words: **983  
**Spoilers: **Up to 4x15  
**Disclaimer:** Nope, I still don't own Fringe.

**Author's Note: **Short, sweet, and as to the point as it's possible for me to be. I would've finished this a long time ago, but then the high from ASSAL faded, and I was back to the usual sad and depressing stuff. But in lieu of 4x19, and even though I love some good angst, I needed something kinda happy. The title comes from the song "Home as a Romanticized Concept Where Everyone Loves You Always and Forever" by Woodpigeon.

Unbeta'd. All mistakes are mine.

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The morning sun warms her from the outside in, like one of Ella's popsicles that she left out on a summer day, leaving a sweet, sticky puddle of purple goo on the steps in front of her apartment that still stains the cement to this day, no matter how hard she scrubbed, no matter how many times evening rainstorms thoroughly swept through the city of Boston.

He warms her in an entirely different way, from the inside out. Like a fire starts as a murmur, born of the leftover embers from a forgotten campground deep in the woods. A blaze that rages and grows until it consumes everything in its path. Out with the old, in with the new. Flames that make way for new blooms, new growth, new hope.

New life.

She watches him as he sleeps next to her, her eyes glued to a man who only days ago she'd thought she lost for good.

"_You changed your mind," she whispered in his ear._

_He shook his head. "I always knew. I always knew, I just…I didn't trust myself. I was terrified of making a mistake again."_

"_But now?"_

_He smiled widely. A shiver ran down her spine._

"_I'm not afraid anymore."_

He stirs lightly, his nose and mouth twitching, and he sighs heavily once. His hand has not left its spot on her hip, where his fingers curl around her bones gently, yet possessively. He faintly tightens his grip.

She twist herself even closer to him, lays her head on his chest and simply listens to the steady whoosh of air as it travels in and out of his lungs, the thump of his heart behind his ribs.

_After they finished, he pressed his mouth to hers lazily. Then his lips traveled down, leaving a trail of sweet, soft kisses on her skin. She closed her eyes, relishing the very feeling of him._

_He paused at her neck, stopped and inhaled once, twice. He stayed still. Her fingers began to delicately stroke his short, brown hair._

_His body, suddenly, began to shake, and she could hear the sobs wracking his body before she felt his hot, wet tears, sliding down her neck and pooling at her collarbone._

"_Peter?"_

"_I thought I lost you," he mumbled into her skin. His voice was so distressed, so vulnerable, so broken that it brought tears to her own eyes. "Oh, God, 'Livia, I thought I lost you. I thought I'd never…" He trailed off, and another cry ripped from his chest. She sat up, and he pulled her closer, his arms squeezing her almost painfully, his hands tangling in her blonde hair. She began to rock them back and forth, trying to soothe him._

"_Olivia."_

_She gently shushed him._

"_I'm here now," she told him quietly. A tear fell from the end of her nose and into his hair._

"_I'm here now."_

His eyes slowly flicker open, squinting briefly as they adjust to the morning sunlight filtering in through the window. He yawns languidly, and she feels his hand that isn't resting on her hip begin to travel up her side, his fingertips leaving faint, warm trails on her skin. He writes indiscernible words across the expanse of her back, and then he presses his fingers to every vertebra of her spine, travelling up, up, up until they knot in the hair at the back of her neck. She lifts her head up, rests her chin on his chest, and scoots up slightly to plant a tender kiss on the underside of his jaw. The coarse hair of his stubble pricks her lips, shooting sparks of electricity throughout her body.

The smile that appears on his face is nothing short of dazzling.

They do not speak yet; they delight in the fact that they have _time, _if only for a moment. No shrill ring of a phone interrupts their comfortable silence. No Walter in the hall knocks on the door, beckoning them to breakfast. They are truly alone, and they can afford to be lazy.

He simply rolls them over, him putting just enough of his weight on her so she feels his body pressing against every plane of hers. She reaches her hand up, running her fingernails lightly down the side of his face. His eyes are bright and ever-blue as he stares at her. She's missed them, she decides.

She's missed _everything_ about him, really, from his eyes to his smell to his dry sense of humor to the feel of his fingers linked with hers as he leads her from the lab after a long day. She's missed his skin, his hair, his presence next to her in bed, his body spooning up behind hers as she fell asleep. She's missed his laugh and the weight of his hand on the small of her back.

She's missed him. She tells him so.

He smiles again, pushing away a stand of her hair that's fallen in-between her eyes and across her nose.

He answers, "I love you."

It's not the first time those words have been said, nor is it anywhere close to the last. But that does not take away the butterflies that flit in her stomach every time they are spoken, the goosebumps that rise on her flesh. She cherishes them like it is the last time, steals the syllables from where they hang in the air between them and buries them deep inside her heart. She responds, reciprocates.

"I love you."

She means this with her entire soul. They both do.

He hums contentedly, bringing his forehead down to rest on hers. He closes his eyes, then smirks, laughing quietly to himself.

"What?" she questions.

He shakes his head. "Nothing. It's just…" He hesitates, opening his eyes and kissing her cheek.

"There's no place like home," he whispers against her skin.

She grins.

Truer words have never been spoken.

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**A/N: **If you haven't noticed, I'm a bit obsessed with Peter and Olivia and the whole concept of "being home". I have a whole playlist dedicated to it, in fact.

Reviews would be lovely :)


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